Jeff Oster found collaborators perfect for taking his music into fresh territory, revitalizing it without stripping out its highly individual Oster character for his lo-fi hip hop album ‘hØwling lØØn.’

With his proper debut ‘Cinematic,’ Dan Cavalca can already boast a fully-formed individual approach to an instrumental music that brings together a lot of familiar elements but the alchemy itself is uncommon…and uncommonly good.

Here is a review of trumpeter Jeff Oster’s new groove-laden new age release ‘next’, featuring Nile Rodgers, Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie.

‘Etymology’ by Burnt Belief, featuring Porcupine Tree’s Colin Edwin and Jon Durant, is as good as you can get with downtempo music.